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I guess 30 years of peace and prosperity was too much for people to handle.. we can't just read our history, we have to learn the hard way.

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I dunno... a travel warning about a country with over a million people currently in camps seems reasonable.

We have about 1/4 their population and over 2 million people in prison I'd think people visiting the US from China should be the ones that are worried.

prison =/= forced labor camp for political prisoners or Muslims

I have yet to see Trump arrest the hundreds of thousands of people who marched against him and send them to perform slave labor in Alaska. Or arrest members of the media or opposing political parties who criticize him

I only wish that was true[1]. Of course, that does nothing to let the Chinese government off the hook for imprisoning and 're-educating' their Uighur citizens.

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penal_labor_in_the_United_Stat...

>I only wish that was true[1].

he said

>for political prisoners or Muslims

Penal labor is bad and all, but equating what china's doing with what's happening in the US is giving china too much credit.

I wasn't trying to give China any credit, what they're doing is reprehensible, no doubt about it. I was suggesting that the situation of African-Americans in the US prison system[1] is less different from the Chinese example than we'd like to think.

1: https://www.naacp.org/criminal-justice-fact-sheet/

Wow, terrible that this is downvoted.

Do you think it would be better for people requesting political asylum to go to US or China?

That totally depends on who you pissed off, see Snowden.

No rule of law could be a hint.

And increasingly willing to throw people in those camps for less and less.

Somewhat like we're suddenly more willing to un-person people in our own society with less pretext, less proof, and less due process. It wouldn't be the first time in our history such has happened. Such things happen in US history as a precursor to wars, and during wartime.

...And all other times. The entire history of the US was built on an entire group of people being legally “un-personed” for purely economic reasons. Are you sure it’s this phenomena you find troubling, or is it just who’s being targeted today? I’m trying to be charitable, yet I’m struggling to frame your comment in another way.

...And all other times. The entire history of the US was built on an entire group of people being legally “un-personed” for purely economic reasons.

Not purely economic. There were ideological reasons used as well.

Are you sure it’s this phenomena you find troubling, or is it just who’s being targeted today?

The troubling part, is that the population who historically had the rights, and practiced the exercise of them is now giving them up, spreading the narrative that they don't matter, and trying to take them away from others through de-facto power or intimidation. (Which has nothing to do with indelible characteristics, and only has to do with the status of citizenship.)

I’m trying to be charitable, yet I’m struggling to frame your comment in another way.

This is precisely the language the "un-personing" perpetrators use to intimidate people into silence and giving up their rights. Sorry, but I'm not buying it.

You interpreted what I said as an attack on your “personhood?” It seems to me you’re falling into the same trap of exaggerated outrage that’s so in vogue, in which taking offense is seen as something approaching a valid point or position. It is very difficult to engage with people who do this.

You interpreted what I said as an attack on your “personhood?”

No.

It seems to me you’re falling into the same trap of exaggerated outrage that’s so in vogue

Basically, I'm making this observation about you.

It is very difficult to engage with people who do this.

Basically, I'm making this observation about you.

Which country? U.S. immigration detention camps had close to half a million people at one point.

Oh come on. How many of those people had legal visas? And how many of them were doing forced labor to death?

Regardless of how you think we should handle illegal immigration, we're talking about two very, very different things here. Apparently there's good reason to believe that even if you follow all the laws of China to the letter, there's a risk they'll throw you in a death camp anyway, just because you're American.

It was tongue-in-cheek remark, since they said camps. Is having a legal visa a requirement for having human rights? How many Americans were thrown in Chinese death camps last year?

Also, 'death camps'? That's mind-killing rhetoric. "Let's have a cold war" rhetoric.

The USA imprisons a way higher % of our population without trial than the Chinese do. Check the plea bargain stats. Is it China's place to try and police our internal problems?

Not necessarily. Heard of the Uyghurs? The Chinese authorities have not been known for thinking Others have human rights, at least since Mao.

Since when did putting millions of ethnic or political minorities in death camps become synonymous with imprisonment for crimes actually committed. You know what you get when you get imprisoned in America? Food, warmth, and lawyer and a judge!

I'm not saying being imprisoned is good. But this level of reverse whataboutism is mind killing.

Since when was China a monolith since Mao? Ever heard of a guy named Deng?

I'd suggest reading some Chinese history, and also a bit about the current plea bargain disaster in the USA, if you think all of those people actually got due process.

As far as us being world police and telling other nations how to manage their affairs.. I'm against it. The Chinese government has done a lot of good and a lot of bad. Let's worry about our domestic problems first.

We should continue to trade, keep the peace, and continue the amazing 30-year-run the world has had since the end of the cold war. Starting another one would cause a lot of harm.

Here's some context.

October, China ups the rhetoric https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/10/china-vows-defend-tai...

January, China ups the rhetoric more. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/01/world/asia/xi-jinping-tai...

Taiwan is a military ally of the USA. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_non-NATO_ally

And then immediately after this the govt said travel there is risky.

If China tries to invade Taiwan to take it back, the USA must go to war or the entire alliance network on top of which world peace was constructed will lose its reputation. For our grandchildrens' futures lest NATO collapse (because why contribute if the USA won't defend you), going to war with China to deny them Taiwan might be the only option.

Shit is more serious than you think. War is brewing. Right now.

Accepting a plea agreement does not constitute being thrown in prison without trial.

What human rights are being violated again? You don't have a right to just be in America. That's not a human right.

The whole point of this article is that China has just begun threatening Americans, so what happened last year is irrelevant.

>You don't have a right to just be in America.

Nobody is claiming this straw man. Read more here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_detention_in_the_U...

So you agree that China hasn't thrown Americans into death camps? This rhetoric leans more towards being motivated in part from a failing trade war with China, not based on a real threat.

I'm sorry but 30k illegal immigrants in a relative mansion with butlers is nothing compared to what everyone knows the Chinese do to undesirables. If you're an American, you are now an undesirable.

Here let me put it this way. Go to tianenman square and make a speech about it. You know you'll die in China. You knew that 10 years ago. And things just got worse.

Refugees do have rights, and signatory states have obligations under the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and as amended in the 1967 Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees. The U.S. is signatory to the convention and protocol. And also the 1980 Refugee Act applies in the U.S.A.

I don't want to argue there are no violations of rights occurring at all. That's an extraordinarily improbable stance to hold.

But if you don't see something different about illegal immigrants detained in America, and what China is known to do... Then there's simply something morally wrong with you.

You're proving my point with that rush to demonize.

The travel warning has nothing to do with uighur camps. Americans and Canadians aren't Uighur and aren't part of that conflict. It's like saying nations would issue travel warnings about the US because of fear of drone bombs.

This is an escalating tit-for-tat related to the Huawei CFO. And all too many are just so certain that the place they were born is just so righteous.. it's probably going to continue to escalate.

I would argue the Huawei CFO situation is just another escalation in the tit-for-tat battle that accompanies a rising power trying to displace an existing power. Most times, this leads to armed conflict of one sort or another.

I mean, in the long arc, sure, but I'd really like to not see it get there.

The Huawei thing just seems so avoidable. We renege on a deal with Iran that the Iranians were honoring, we start a trade war with China for mostly domestic-political reasons, and then we lump the 2 together into a justification for borderline-kidnapping of their citizen in Canada?

Whatever happened to getting together at the table and negotiating about this stuff?

Not that I disagree with your reasoning (and that going after Meng Wanzhou is a strange and seemingly unnecessary escalation), but China does not really negotiate honestly or play by any set of recognized international rules. I guess you could say the same of the US, but then you see the dilemma.

My, unfortunately cynical, takeaway is that no matter how “woke” we like to think we have become as a global society, everything still eventually boils down to might makes right.

Germans called it https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Realpolitik

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